


redwing

by sunbean72



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, POV Sam Wilson, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Salty, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Team Iron Man, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony-centric, eventually, first chapter is set after AoU, not team cap :(, pre A:IW, team james rhodes, team sam wilson, then we'll be in the civil war era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-04-06 15:39:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14060103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbean72/pseuds/sunbean72
Summary: This fic is inspired by an interview from Mackie where he talks about Redwing and how "Tony Stark is so interested in technology and gadgets. When he meets you he sizes you up, and he makes you the best potential superhero you can be," and he says that "Redwing is not a pet. He's his own person, he has a mind of his own" because he's been "Starkerized" :D And it fascinates me that Tony made a little baby AI for Sam.For all my readers that read the tony and natasha after siberia fic and wanted her to confront steve, this is for you! I hope you enjoy. thank you forever all of you who comment as you read it means a heck of a lot to me.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter takes place a few months after Age of Ultron, after Sam has joined the Avengers.

Sam wiped the sweat off his forehead with his forearm, pleasantly sore from the days sparring session with Natasha. "...Which is probably why you need to watch your left side when you use that move," Natasha finished saying as they got to the exit of the gym. "But I have to say I'm... impressed." She graced him with a smirk and he couldn't help but grin. 

"Yeah girl, you know it," he said, bumping shoulders with the pretty red-head.

"Don't get too cocky, Wilson," she warned, and in the split-second he went to take a drink from his water bottle she swiped at his leg. He was ready for it though and caught his balance, using the move they'd been practicing to counter Natasha's sneak attack. 

She looked at him as he released her arm, her eyebrows raised. "Now I really am impressed," she said. He gave her another grin and a salute, moving to go to his quarters to shower. Natasha cut him off, nudging him toward a different elevator that would take them to the common area. "Food first, I'm starving." 

The elevators opened to the spacious common area where the kitchen and dining area were, as well as a large screen tv and couches. He immediately noticed Rhodey in the kitchen, surprising him a little; the colonel was supposed to be gone for the week after their last mission to the middle east, and it'd only been three days. "Rhodes! What's up my man?" He offered his hand to the colonel, who smiled in greeting.

The two of them had bonded almost instantly. The older man was smart and experienced, and yet he always listened when anyone had a suggestion or idea. He was also a complete badass, and could probably still kick trash even without the War Machine armor, but with it he was truly a force to be reconned with. He could be sharp and somewhat intimidating when you didn't know him well, and Sam would never have guessed from his previous interactions with Rhodey that the man had a huge sense of humor and was somewhat of a sarcastic goofball-- though he didn't suffer fools lightly.

Except for maybe one.

"Sam Wilson, as I live and breathe." Sam turned in surprise, having not noticed that Rhodey was not alone in the kitchen and even more surprised to see the charismatic billionaire Tony Stark. Steve had told him that Stark was retired, officially, though the compound was mostly a Stark Industries venture. There were signs of the engineer's influence all around them, but the man himself had been absent from Avenger's compound since the day he announced his retirement from the Avengers six months ago. If Tony had retired, it suited him; he looked fit and was well dressed in some kind of bespoke suit, along with the sunglasses Sam noticed he was always wearing in photos and on the newsreels, even at night.

"Mr. Stark," Sam greeted him, holding out a hand. Tony took it, giving it a firm grip. He seemed to be sizing Sam up, but it was difficult for him to tell with the sunglasses how he was reacting to what he saw. "How you doing, man?"

"Oh, you know, living the dream, finding a few minutes to irritate Rhodey so there's a plus."

Rhodey rolled his eyes but was still smiling from whatever the two of them had been joking about when Sam and Natasha came in. Sam felt a squirm in his chest; it caught him off guard, but something about the two men's casual closeness and innate understanding reminded him of his friendship with Riley; it brought back some of the old pain. (Grief could be like that sometimes; he wondered how long it would take until it stopped surprising him. He wondered if it ever would.)

It was an old injury that didn't heal right. 

(He'd seen that enough in others to recognize it in himself.)

Tony smiled over at Natasha. "You're looking well as always, Ms. Romanoff."

"You too. How's Pepper?"

There was a split second of silence where Tony didn't respond before he cracked a joke. "Who, your old boss?" He was laughing at her, and surely realizing this was somewhat foolhardy he answered the question grinning into his coffee cup. "She's... amazing. More than amazing. She's Pepper." Apparently this was enough of an endorsement to earn a Mona Lisa smile from the notoriously straight-faced assassin.

"What are you doing here, Stark? I thought you were in South Korea this week."

"Knowledgable but inaccurate as usual," Tony snarked. "I'm just dropping in to say hello to Rhodey and drop off some equipment. Mr. Wilson, got a second?" 

Sam had meandered over to the refrigerator, ignoring the pleasantries, and peered around the door when he heard Tony address him. "Who me?" He asked in surprise. Tony did not respond and Sam couldn't see his eyes behind his omnipresent sunglasses. "Uh, yeah sure, I got a minute."

"Great. Listen Rhodes, I'll get back to you about recalibrating the balance with the new repulser, just have JARVIS... I mean, have Friday run a few diagnostics, okay? Are you coming with me to this meeting or not?"

"I said I'd come," Rhodey said flippantly. "If you agreed to come Friday. You are going to that, by the way."

"No, I'm actually not. I think I'd rather die than hang out with your general buddy, he's deadly. He'll put the enemies of the United States to sleep with his boring stories."

"Yep. And I hate your meetings with the special committee, but I'm going to that. So. Friday."

Tony shrugged and made a shooing motion to dismiss his buddy then gestured for Sam to follow him. He glanced back at Natasha, wondering if she had some clue what Tony wanted him for, but she just raised her eyebrows. Tony lead him to an elevator that Sam hadn't used before, one that took them to areas of Stark Industries. Natasha had told him that there was a personal lab for Bruce and an unfinished art studio that Tony had started to make for Steve before Steve said he probably wouldn't be able to use it much. Tony pressed his thumb to a small square and several floors that weren't there before lit up on the screen. Tony pressed their floor and leaned against the wall, appraising Sam.

"How's it going, Wilson? Your stint as an Avenger, how's it been?"

"Like a dream," Sam said immediately. "It was what I've always been looking for without knowing it. You know?"

Sliding his hands in the pockets of his suit and leaning back, Tony nodded slightly. Something about the innocuous gesture made Sam realize that he'd maybe been a bit insensitive. He wasn't privy to the reasons why Stark had semi-retired from the Avengers, but he'd been around people hiding their feelings enough to know that he may have just touched a nerve. Up until that moment, if Tony Stark crossed his mind at all it was because he was in awe of his wealth and felt something like jealousy and irritation that one man could seemingly have so much. But in that moment, something in his posture and face (even with sunglasses) made him second guess that. "I mean... for me. It's my dream. I've wanted to help people all my life. I joined the military. Then I was helping veterans. That was all good, you know? But this seems like something bigger. I'm just grateful to be a part of it."

"You come from good people." Tony took his sunglasses off and put them in his jacket pocket as the doors to the elevator opened and they stepped out. "Meshing well with your teammates?"

"I think so. In the military everyone was kind of trained the same, you know, to be soldiers. We kind of all knew what to expect from each other. On this team, we aren't all soldiers." That made Tony glance back at him. "And we all have different strengths and weaknesses with our abilities. It's taking a lot of practice to get things to mesh well."

"The Avengers are lucky to have you," he said over his shoulder.

Sam followed a few steps behind Tony and didn't see his face when they entered the lab, but he definitely picked up on the sudden tension in Stark's shoulders. He wondered what that could be about, but he could tell something about the pristine lab had bothered Tony. The lights came up, on some kind of sensor or just the AI paying attention. Tony pulled off his suit jacket and threw it over the back of a chair, looking around the lab. "Just a sec," he murmured to Sam, rolling up his shirt sleeves, exposing his forearms. He was looking around the lab like a man who had come back to his childhood room.

"I guess it's been a while since you've been back here, huh?" Sam asked after a few moments of silence. Stark nodded absently then finally glanced at Sam and smiled. 

"Friday, was the package delivered?" he asked the room. 

"Yes boss. It's on station three." 

Tony moved to the spot she indicated and moved a few things and exposing a large wooden container. "Help me over here, Wilson." The two of them moved the heavy container onto the ground where Tony knelt down and started opening it. "The EXO-7, right? That's what they call it, your flight suit."

"Right."

"You were in Afghanistan? With the 58th?"

"Yeah! I guess you did some homework on me."

"A bit," Tony replied distracted again. "I consulted on the EXO's design a little bit. Early on the alloy was too brittle and they were seeing some problems with breakage at higher speeds or certain low impacts."

"You're kidding me! You helped design the EXO?"

"Not really, just helped tweak a few things. Point is I want to make sure it's still working for you, though. Any issues crop up during your training? Notice any problems?"

"Not that I can think of."

"That's good. Good. I uh... I had this idea. It might benefit you, but if it doesn't work out, don't feel obligated. It's just a prototype, anyway." Sam watched Tony dexterously open the container and pull out a large silver and red object, larger than a football and by Tony's heft of the object, somewhat heavier.

"What's that?" Sam asked curiously. It somewhat reminded him of the EXO-7, the components looking similar in aesthetic.

"This little guy is the Stark Drone MK82 922 V 80Z V2 Prototype Unit V6."

"Okay?"

Tony gave a small laugh. "Sorry you asked? I call him Redwing. Here, hold it." Sam took the compact object, turning it over to get a better view as Tony dug through the packing for other pieces. He straightened up, holding an arm bracer and goggles. "Redwing here is a drone. I figured with Hawkeye... he was kind of the eyes and ears of the team. You flying around, you can give the team a tactical advantage, but if you're needed on the ground, this is the guy that's gonna help you. Like Hawkeye, get it?"

"Wow. I mean... man, that definitely sounds amazing. How's it work? Should I carry him like a football?" He mimicked a football player strong-arming an opponent, cradling the drone.

"You won't have to carry him," Tony said with a laugh. "This part is just what you will attach to the EXO-7. These will clip onto your wing pack, if you look _here._ It's also magnetized, that will be the main way, but you have to push the release button _here_ so it can't be knocked off by accident and way harder for someone to just rip it off. You'll have to be really careful because it can take a lot of weight before this failsafe snaps so literally you could get dragged if you attach the grappling handcuff to something."

"The grappling handcuff?" Sam exclaimed. "That would be so cool! Show me!" Tony looked up from examining Redwing, and for the first time since he met the man, Tony fully smiled. 

"That's nothing, that's nothing. Rhodey was telling me how you have a great mind for tactical information, so I thought--"

"Wait, Rhodes said that? About me? He's always busting my chops!"

"Yeah, that's how you know he likes you, didn't you know? Anyway, here, try this on." He gestured for Sam to hold out his arm and helped attach it. "Of course it will communicate with your EXO-7 as well, it's all integrated. This is a touchscreen. Yeah, there, flip that up. You can activate it by voice, there's a few phonetic pangrams you'll need to say. Really if you worked on it a couple of hours, Redwing could answer just about any command you give it."

"A phonetic what now?" Sam had heard both Rhodey and Natasha talk about what a brilliant genius Tony was, but this was the first time Sam had seen the man in his element and was finding him somewhat hard to keep up with. 

"Yeah, you know. For voice recognition. 'The hungry purple dinosaur ate the kind, zingy fox, the jabbering crab, and the mad whale and started vending and quacking.' Did they have to do that before?" Sam could only shake his head in bewilderment. "It's really only good for things meant specifically for you, like Redwing. If _only_ your voice is controlling it, it needs to know more of your voice modulations than usual. Anyway, back to this guy. He's smaller, which will be a plus, obviously, when you need to get to a smaller space. Of course, he can see through walls, but there are certain dense materials or if someone went to the trouble of creating a Faraday cage, you'll have to send him in. Is it a him? I was thinking him. You'd send him in. He can guide himself, but you have complete control. I'm getting ahead of myself though."

"I'm sorry... did you say he can see through walls?" Sam scratched his head and laughed as Tony got out a few more pieces of equipment.

"Okay, yeah, to back up a bit. There's kind of an owners manual, but you're going to have to play with it. Like I said, it's a prototype. But you control it with this bracing, and it will send information to these goggles. Okay? Follow me so far? You should spend some time flying with him. It takes some getting used to, following the information he can transmit as well as paying attention to where you're going. And presumably you will also be in a fight of some kind with bad guy flavor of the month. Speaking of which-- here. This button. Be careful! Redwing can fire weapons, okay? There had to be a little bit of give and take, so his weapons are not extremely powerful, he's more meant for information gathering, but it will certainly be better than nothing in a pinch. Right? If you start messing with him and think you need more firepower, let me know, but the EXO-7 will probably be the thing to upgrade if that happens."

Tony handed him a pair of goggles with red tinted lenses, looking more like a fancy pair of sunglasses than protective eyewear. _Nice,_ Sam thought. "These are vital to using Redwing-- it's where all info will be sent. Try them on. They're fairly sturdy, but I would try to avoid getting shot directly in the face," he said dryly. "I know you've used tech like this a little, but it might take some getting used to. If it's too much, let me know and we can set some parameters for what you do and don't want to see."

Sam put the goggles on, and for a moment all he could see was Stark's face as he watched him. Then the goggles lit up, but instead of the images and info appearing right in his face, obscuring his view, it almost looked like he was in a movie theater with perfect seats and the words appeared on the screen without interfering with his view. "Okay, this is kinda awesome," he admitted. 

"Okay, good. There's lots of details, but basically there's flight, visual linking and scanning, and the projectile weapons. Got it?"

"I got you so far."

"Perfect. Like I said, he's a smart little bugger, but he's inexperienced, so until he learns what you want him to do, he's going to make mistakes if you don't tell him _exactly_ what you want. There's different ways to do it-- voice commands, use the touchscreen, and the bracer can even recognize some hand movements but you have to be careful if you want to use those not to activate something on accident."

"Okay, awesome." Sam looked around the room. Information about what he was seeing displayed automatically, feeding him tons of information. "This is so cool."

Tony burst out laughing and Sam looked at him quizzically. "I'm really glad you like it so far, Mr. Wilson," he said with a grin. "But we haven't even turned Redwing on yet. Those are just standard info from your heads-up display, your HUD." Sam looked at him in amazement then laughed.

"All right you impressed me. This is way better than anything I've ever seen before."

"We'll see. You usually go with fingerless gloves, right? I thought so. So you can power it on with your fingerprint _here._ Redwing's not powerful enough for someone to cut your finger off to steal him but I'd still be careful, because he could potentially store information valuable to our enemies," Tony said, deadpan.

"I'll... keep that in mind."

Tony couldn't keep his face straight and smiled again. Sam felt himself warming up to the mercurial billionaire. "All right. Fire 'im up," Tony said with a wave of his hand.

After calibrating his fingerprint, Sam pressed his finger to the pad and the little drone stirred to life, detaching himself from the pack and spreading his wings with a soft whirring sound and hovering in front of them. The info on his goggles immediately displayed a small screen with a bird's-eye view, and Sam could see Redwing's first images-- that of himself, looking up in wonder. "Holy crap, I look amazing," Sam said, flexing his biceps and eliciting a chuckle from Tony.

"Oh, yes, very impressive. May I?" He pointed at the goggles. Sam nodded and Tony swiped a finger along the side of one lens. The information displaying on the goggles immediately expanded onto a large glass wall Sam hadn't noticed until that moment. Redwing zoomed out, getting a wider field of view, taking in the two men with a small camera Sam could see swiveling around. "If you want to see a bigger or more detailed image of what he's sending you, tap that icon. Yeah. Now. There should be a few options on your bracer now for what you want him to do."

Sam glanced down at the display on the touchscreen. There were multiple options for scans that Redwing could complete-- heat signatures, night vision, x-ray, a blacklight, UV light, motion detection, just to name a few. "This will really be helpful."

"That's the idea. If you're not sure what you're looking for, just hit this. It will do an initial scan. Or just tell him what you're looking for and he can create an algorithm. Tell him 'Redwing I'm looking for weapons.'"

"Redwing." The little camera focused on Sam. "I'm looking for weapons." Tony and Sam watched the big screen as Redwing moved into a better position. A red laser scanner scanned the room and on the screen, dozens of images stood out in glowing red.

"He's making a judgment call about some of these," Tony said with a snicker, touching the image of a butter knife on the sink and magnifying it. "It will take time for him to learn what you mean. Redwing, come here." The bot dropped down in a quick dive and hovered right before Tony's face. "Deactivate Stark protocol 286. Realign priority protocols to Sidekick version 36, authorization Beta13 tango x897, Samuel Wilson." Redwing flew back to his 'nest' as Sam had started thinking of it and powered down.

Sam took off the goggles as the screen display flickered off. Tony stepped over to the droid and picked up the package. "He's a good boy. He's already showing a lot of personality, I think you'll notice it. But, yeah. Should be of some benefit, I hope."

"I honestly don't know what to say. No one has ever done something like this for me before. Thank you. How can I ever repay you, Mr. Stark?"

Tony waved his hand. "It's all good, Mr. Wilson."

"Please, would you call me Sam?"

Tony smirked. "Sam. My privilege. But... just an FYI. This buddy is heavily encrypted. No one, not even me, will have access to his protocols or servers. Since I'm technically retired, I am not privy to the information he's collecting for you. He does have an SOS mode that will alert me if you're in trouble, but _only if you activate it._ I can't stress that enough. I'm hands off now, except for maintenance and upgrades to his software, repairs, that kind of thing. My teams can fix him if I'm not around. The point is, if I have a point, he's yours now, officially and unofficially for world security purposes, you are responsible for him."

"But you can control him if you need to?"

"Nope! Not without your authorization codes, which you will have to create. It's all in here." He tapped a small book of instructions still in the box. "I can't make him do anything or stop you from doing anything with him now; you could even use him against me," he said with a laugh. Sam chuckled at the idea. "The only caveat to that is that there is a self-destruct mode if he's being tampered with. I have a _slight_ paranoia about my tech falling into the wrong hands. Since Redwing has the potential for becoming more weaponized, there are a few fail-safes. But as long as you don't try to arm him with a nuclear warhead, you should be good."

"Mr. Stark I really do appreciate this. It's like a little piece of Iron Man is still with the team now!"

Tony was silent at that and for a second Sam wondered if he'd upset or offended him. Tony pulled his suit jacket back on and put his sunglasses on, gesturing with his hand. The lights in the lab dimmed, and Tony stood looking at the darkened room. 

"Thanks Sam. Iron Man is still heavily invested in the success of the Avengers, even if he can't be out flying with you. I can only hope I'm always there when you need me." Sam nodded, sensing Tony's mood shift back into a kind of sadness or grief he'd noticed when they first entered the lab. Sam carried the box with the little drone in it, and they chatted about of few of it's specs on the way back to the common area.

"Ready, Rhodey?" Tony asked when they got to the kitchen.

"Been waiting on you," Rhodey grumbled, waving a goodbye to Natasha. The two of them left a few moments later leaving Sam to explain to Natasha what Tony had wanted with him. 

She looked at the drone, wrinkling her nose. "I don't trust things that can see and hear without anyone knowing it."

"Well, I think he's cute," Sam said a little defensively. "And you only feel that way because you like to be the only one who knows things that other people don't."

"Not always," she replied, shutting the lid on the box.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're still in the time period after Age of Ultron and before Civil War. Rhodey tells some of the new Avengers about Tony's past, including about JARVIS and Stane. I intended this to move the plot forward more than it did, but it was an interesting conversation and I wish a more capable writer than me explored team cap's reaction to certain information about Tony Stark. From what I've seen in the movies Sam is an empathetic, sensitive person and I don't have any reason to believe he wouldn't be compassionate toward Tony once he finds out some of the things he's been through.
> 
> I think the next chapter will be set during Civil War.

Steve Rogers admired the workmanship of the little drone, but wasn't overall impressed with Redwing at first.

"Tony's great but he always feels like he has to put his own personal spin on everything. He really wanted to get his hands on my shield and improve it, too," he said with mild affection and exasperation."He has good intentions, but technology isn't always the answer to the problem no one had, you know?"

"Believe me Cap, I can use all the help I can get when rolling with _this_ crew. Stark gets me. He knows we can't all be superpowered like you," Sam teased. Steve grinned and for a second looked like a normal, young twenty-something without all the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"We had a saying," he began.

"Oh boy."

"Back in my day--"

"Here we go."

"We would say 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'" Steve said, affecting a severe look.

"Hey, Steve, I think there's some kids on the lawn, why don't you go shoo them off while you're in grandpa mode?"

"This grandpa had no problem beating you at arm wrestling last night, so I'm not sure where you're going with this."

"I let you win," Sam explained magnanimously. "I know how bad you felt after our last training session, you smelled like bengay for three days--"

"That wasn't bengay!" Steve protested. "That was vapor rub, it cures everything--"

"Not this again!" Wanda cut across. "Steve, no one uses vapor rub like that. It's basically petroleum jelly." The redhead looked up from her books. She was sitting across from Vision, who was listening to music on headphones. The quiet android had an eclectic taste bent toward classical composers like Mozart; yet the occasional bass from an AC/DC song could be heard in quiet moments. He gave a small smile at Wanda's comment, giving away that he'd been listening to their banter as well.

"I personally think that technology can be of great benefit to the team," he said, a hint of asperity in his voice. Sam grinned; he wondered what Tony Stark would think of the influence of the sarcastic and snarky members of the team. "Just because something isn't broken doesn't mean there's not ways to improve it. Indeed... we all should look to improve ourselves, for the benefit of those we protect."

"Fair enough," Steve said, smiling at his teammate, but Sam noticed him subtly roll his eyes with a slow blink. "You are certainly a man after Tony Stark's heart."

It didn't take that long to win Steve over, however, once he saw how much safer the team was as a result of Redwing's capabilities. For some reason, Black Widow continued to disparage him, casting it dark looks during training exercises. She claimed it didn't like her, and Sam would often direct the robot to antagonize her, making Wanda and Rhodey laugh. Cap refused to join in on their joking anthropomorphization entirely, not bothering to address Redwing like the others did but always turning to Sam to give directions. Sam had programmed certain verbal commands to be obeyed by the other members of the team, but Steve refused. He'd also commented more than once that Sam probably had seen Star Wars one too many times and was treating Redwing like a droid instead of a tool. "I need to know that thing is under your control at all times," he'd stressed.

"He's not dangerous! He's just a sweet baby, would never hurt a fly." Sam was aware that the drone's weapons system included small projectiles with enough power to create a small explosion-- enough to create a hole in a building to give the Avengers an entrance/exit in an emergency, and certainly enough to kill someone, but was precautionary; the team had more than enough firepower without it. "All he does is gather intel." Steve stared at Redwing, his face expressionless.

"That makes him pretty dangerous in my book," was all he would answer.

...

Sam figured it was a generation gap kind of thing, as Wanda approved of Redwing and would often send up swirls of scarlet mist for him to fly through, creating a spectacular show, and working with Sam to find ways to protect Redwing in battle. For all his benefits, he was somewhat fragile and had needed to be repaired three times in the first month until Sam figured out his vulnerabilities. No crashing him into things, for instance.

After one such trip to the "vet" as Sam would say, Steve welcomed him back with a particularly vigorous training session. Redwing performed admirably and afterword it prompted an affectionate pat on his head from Wanda before Sam sent him soaring back through the air to run through his recon functions before they followed Steve and Natasha back to the compound. Wanda caught Vision smiling at her over it, and Sam had to admit that Wanda was pretty cute the way she interacted with Redwing. The little witch was like a sister to him, but he sometimes got the impression that there was something more between his two colleagues than friendship.

Vision himself treated Redwing the same as he treated all his teammates-- with respectful politeness. Sam wasn't sure what that meant or how he ranked is human allies in comparison to the small machine, but he didn't dwell on it too much. Vision was adept at dealing with any type of technology, more adept than the rest of them combined. Even Rhodey, a literal rocket scientist and longtime companion to Tony's AIs and bots, didn't have the instincts, the kinship that Vision had. It made Sam wonder why Tony hadn't given the little drone to Vision or James Rhodes instead, but he wasn't about to look a multi-million dollar piece of awesomeness in the mouth.

As Tony had predicted, Sam noticed... _behavior_ from Redwing. Redwing was limited in his forms of communication; he could only relay things he saw and heard, and yet Sam still thought the drone sometimes seemed to have a _mood_ he was in-- usually playful or teasing. Sam attributed the small quirks he noticed to his own imagination, but the longer he spent using the drone the more he thought it was doing funny things on purpose. It initially occurred to him that Tony Stark was playing some kind of prank on him, and had programmed the drone to act the way he did; but if it was Tony, Sam couldn't see how he got any satisfaction from his joke because true to his word he was hands-off. Aside from a couple of emails directing him to contact as SI employee when he asked a few questions about how to use some of Redwing's more complicated functions, he hadn't been around or asked about it at all.

He was left to think it was Redwing himself. He asked Vision about it, curious about his opinion, as he watched Redwing soar through the sky with apparent abandon, making a wide loop over a field, spinning and doing loops with agile perfection before coming back as Sam had instructed him. "Hey, Vis, would you consider Redwing alive? Or is he like... a fancy laptop?" Redwing had returned but not powered down yet, apparently observing his teammates from Sam's hands.

"An interesting question." Vision walked over to them and held out his hand for the drone. Wanda had followed him, leaning around his arm to look for herself. "What do you think, Wanda?"

Wanda quirked her mouth in thought. "I can't read him," she offered, her Sokovian accent crisp in the air like autumn. "He's not like _you. _But sometimes... I can almost _feel_ him. But I can't tell you what he feels like, exactly." Wanda lifted her hand experimentally, the reddish glow of her powers flickering over the silver and red paint as Redwing lay in Vision's hands. She flicked her fingers and the mist fell on the machine. It did not move or respond, his small camera the only movement. Sam could see Redwing's perspective on his goggles, the faces of his teammates staring down at him in curiosity and interest. Wanda shrugged. "I feel nothing. But sometimes it is almost as if he... wants to help. That might just be me."__

____

Sam powered down his little sidekick, and it went still and dark in Vision's hands. Vision contemplated Sam's question as he turned it over in his hands, finally answering, "Redwing is unique. He has a certain... intelligence. Outside of that, I'm afraid he is... incomprehensible. Like a wild animal. He obeys commands, but he has... thoughts of his own. His own mind. He is an enigma, perhaps."

____

Rhodey had walked up to them when they didn't make for the compound behind Steve and Natasha and overheard the last part of their conversation. He nodded. "Yeah, lots of Tony's stuff is like that. Those bots he made when he was a teenager? Dum-e and U? They're like puppies or something, sometimes I swear they feel bad when Tony yells at them and if they were alive I would definitely say they were playful. And they are the least advanced of Tony's creations; don't get me started on JARVIS. I forgot sometimes he wasn't alive. I would never have thought it, but when Tony told me what happened to him, it hit me hard. He was like a friend to me, it's crazy."

____

"What's JARVIS?" Sam asked blankly.

____

"Steve didn't tell you?" Rhodey asked, glancing at Vision.

____

"No. What is he like, a dead Avenger?"

____

"Ha, that's funny," Rhodey said sarcastically and Sam realized that Rhodey had not been joking about being hit hard when this mysterious JARVIS had something happen to it.

____

"Sorry, man," he said sincerely. "Sorry."

____

Rhodey raised his shoulders as a signal of forgiveness, not an easy feat with the War Machine armor on, but he pulled it off. "JARVIS, Just a Rather Very Intelligent System, was an AI of Tony's that was kind of... I don't even know how to describe it. It was an extension of Tony's mind, kind of. It ran the house-- security, projects, all the busy day-to-day stuff. But he seemed real. He... acted like a person. And he ran Stark Industries, it watched over it after what happened with Stane."

____

"Who's that? Stane?" Wanda asked.

____

Rhodey glanced at her and coughed, raising his eyebrows-- a loaded question, Sam gathered. "He was Tony's mentor. He was like a father to him, but he was really stabbing him in the back for years. He was the one who... well. It's a long story. He's the one who tried to have Tony killed in Afghanistan. You know. Where his chest was shredded to ribbons by is own weapons being used against him? And he was tortured into promising to make a weapon for the very people who were supposed to kill him, but he became Iron Man."

____

"I kind of knew about all that, but I didn't know this guy Stane was involved. I thought the Ten Rings was responsible for all that."

____

"Stane hired them," Rhodey said firmly. "I don't know if we know all his reasons why, but he wanted complete control of Stark Industries. He'd been selling weapons under the table without Tony knowing about it, and I guess he was looking to go above table and make even more money, I don't know. Tony only ever created things for the military it was part of their contract, but Stane was more than happy to sell them to anyone for the right price."

____

"Stane sold Stark Industry weapons without Tony knowing it?" Sam asked, a growing discomfort in his mind. He'd read all about Tony Stark shutting down his weapon's development after Afghanistan, but he'd always assumed that Stark himself the one benefitting from the weapon's sales and that he was a bit of a hypocrite for only shutting it down when those weapons were used against him. This new tidbit of information made him feel bad he'd judged Tony so harshly.

____

Another thought occurred to him. Sam had been in the room when Steve and Clint discussed Wanda and her past at length. He knew that she had had a huge grudge against Stark because his weapons had been used to attack Sokovia when she was a child. Steve hadn't mentioned anything about Stane and Sam wondered if he even knew about him, and from a glance at Wanda's face, he could tell this was news to her as well. Steve had told Sam privately that Tony had okayed Wanda's admission to the team after he'd talked to her at her brother's funeral; Stark had been pragmatic about it and said she didn't understand what she was doing and Bruce wasn't here to hulk out at the sight of her so they might as well keep an eye on her. _She didn't show me anything I didn't already know,_ Steve had reported Stark saying.

____

"So whatever happened to this Stane guy?"

____

"He ripped the arc reactor out of Tony's chest when he couldn't duplicate the technology and used it to power a suit that would allow him to kill anyone who stood in his way." Rhodey said bluntly. "Tony was able to stop him, but Stane was killed in the process."

____

"I know I've asked this before but _what the hell?_ That's messed up." He tried to imagine what it was like for Stark to have his arc reactor ripped out. Must have been a relief to him when he had it removed, after going through that. Sam felt a heaviness in his stomach, an anxiety that came from realizing he'd been operating under misapprehensions and so had a lot of the team. "Why don't we know about this Stane guy? Kind of seems like important information." He couldn't keep the note of indignation out of his voice. He didn't like the idea or the feeling that people were keeping information from him, particularly when it came to team members. While Tony wasn't on active combat duty, it was clear that he still had a lot to do with the Avengers.

____

Rhodey fixed his eyes on Sam's. "There were a lot of people who wanted it quiet. The US government. SHIELD hushed it up. And Tony himself never wanted it out there; he felt responsible for all of it, and you can't imagine how it's impacted him that his mentor, a man like a father to him, was the one who tried to kill him the one who did that with his weapons. He didn't want it talked about. It was personal." Sam thought about saying something snarky about Tony having a personal life-- when so much of his life was public domain and so many of his mistakes public, it seemed like he didn't have a private life. But there was clearly a side of Tony that very few people knew about, despite all that, and he kept his mouth shut.

____

"He told me Stane was his own fault because he should have known what was going on-- it's part of why he beefed up JARVIS' responsibilities, to prevent it from ever happening again. But it's all there in the info dump courtesy of Natasha, Sam. He's not a super trusting individual, not after that, and that's exactly the kind of information that can be used against him, right? SHIELD had concocted some story that Stane died in a plane crash and most people don't think to dig any deeper than that."

____

"He's all cool with you telling us about it though?" Sam asked, his eyebrows raised.

____

"Like I said, it's out there now, and in all honesty... I wish more people understood Tony. I wish people would judge him less harshly, and the Avengers are benefiting hugely from his benevolence, it would be nice if you were some of the few people that give him the benefit of the doubt." Rhodey's voice was cutting, biting. Uneasily Sam glanced at Wanda, but she stood expressionless, quiet now as they looked down at Redwing.

____

"So if I got this right, Stane was the reason Tony created JARVIS, the AI he used before Friday?" Sam had only spoken to Friday once, a few days after he came to Avenger's Compound when he called Tony for a question about his room and the Compound's AI had given him the number. The AI that ran the Compound was mostly silent, generic; it didn't even have a name that Sam knew of. Sam wondered now if there was a reason behind that. He'd assumed it was a cost thing, but he was second-guessing that at the moment.

____

"Yeah, that's right, back to JARVIS. He didn't create him after Stane, just expanded his duties quite a bit, to keep an eye on more things and initiated all these protocols to watch for threats. He was a pretty integrated part of the Avengers, really. Anyway, I assume you know something about Vision's creation."

____

"It was some kind of alien magic tech, right? I think I remember, but Steve said he didn't know the details." He'd seemed pretty mad about it, actually, but Sam didn't say that to Rhodey. "I kind of remember. JARVIS was uploaded into the body Ultron created for himself, right?" He looked to Vision.

____

"You are essentially correct," Vision said quietly. "Although... the JARVIS that Colonel Rhodes and Tony Stark knew and cared for was... gone by that time. I feel that I am separate and distinct from JARVIS, as I have none of his experiences or memories, but I believe he is an essential, fundamental part of me. We can't know how much influence he has on who I am."

____

"Your personality is different, I'll tell you that much. JARVIS was a sarcastic SOB. But... yeah, sometimes, you seem like him. He was... caring. Yeah. He cared. You do that sometimes too. If Redwing is like any of Tony's other AIs, he's a good bro. Except Friday, she's feisty, I would not mess with her by the way."

____

"Hey, you guys!" The group of them turned toward the voice calling to them, Natasha with her hands cupped to her mouth. "Get your butts in here, we have to debrief the training so I can eat lunch! Move it on the double!" Vision handed Redwing to Sam and flew off ahead of them, Rhodey blasting off behind him. Sam decided to walk, needing the cooldown, and Wanda fell into step beside him.

____

"I did not know all that about Stark," Wanda said after a moment.

____

"Me either," Sam affirmed. He wondered what she was thinking, how she was feeling about it-- perhaps guilty. "It's not your fault. Sounds like Mr. Stark kept it kind of under wraps. You couldn't have known."

____

"Maybe. But I should have. I misjudged him, maybe, but-- What I saw in his mind." She paused, the wind whipping her red hair around her pretty face. "It is still true, Sam."

____

"Uhhh... Which part exactly?"

____

"I told Steve once. He will do anything to make things right."

____

"I think that's a good thing? No?"

____

"I'm still not sure. When Vision was... born? Created? When he came to life, he said he was on the side of life. Perhaps this is a thing he gets from JARVIS, from Tony Stark. But there's a darkness in Stark's mind, from the guilt I think. Guilt makes him... less afraid? Because if everything is his fault, he believes he can control it. It is the darkness I worry about. The need to control things."

____

"I don't know Tony very well," Sam said with a shrug. "But he seems all right to me. And Vision is awesome, you know?"

____

"I don't want to misjudge Stark again. I think both of us are still trying to forgive each other, though, and sometimes I still feel angry."

____

Sam thought about this a moment. "I hope you can forgive him, Wanda. For your own sake. Well, for all of ours. Tony Stark and Wanda Maxmioff would make any team unstoppable!"

____

She laughed as they entered the compound where Steve gave them a dirty look. As he sat down to the debriefing, Sam found himself pondering Rhodey and Wanda's perspectives, wondering what it meant to trust and how any man including Tony Stark could recover from the kinds of trauma he'd been through.

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm debating with myself whether Sam knew the Winter Soldier killed Howard and Maria. On one hand, he seems pretty tight with Steve and Natasha and I think they'd be discussing things. On the other hand... Sam sent Tony after Steve in Siberia and I can't help but think he would NOT DO THAT THING when it involved Bucky if he knew the truth. Thoughts?
> 
> As always I am so happy when you comment :D


	3. Chapter 3

Sam tapped on the door and waited.

No answer. He kept waiting.

After a few moments, he knocked again. "Wanda? It's Sam."

"Come in."

"Hey Wanda," he said softly as he peeked his head in the door. "I can come back later if you want."

"No, it's okay. Come in." Sam stepped through the door, holding a cup of tea. 

"I brought you this," he offered. She took it quietly, looking up at him, her green eyes sad but clear. He could see that she had been crying though, as evidenced by the red rash around her eyes and her slightly swollen nose.

"Thanks, Sam." She took it but didn't drink, setting it on the desk after a few moments.

"Did I make it wrong?" He teased, trying to get her to smile.

"No! It's... it's perfect, Sam." The pretty redhead looked at him without smiling, with nothing anywhere near a smile. She looked lost. "It was thoughtful of you. But... I don't know. I kind of..." she hesitated. Sam gave her a small, encouraging smile.

He had thought that she might need someone to talk to, and with Steve dealing with the authorities, there were few options for her. He'd just spoken to Steve on the phone and things weren't going well. Apparently, some random king of a small country in Africa was really throwing a fit about the deaths of his outreach workers who had been killed in the explosion, telling Steve he was indifferent to their suffering when he tried to explain that they had just been doing their job and stopping a biological weapon from being taken. He could tell that Steve was already freaking out because Crossbones mentioned Bucky Barnes; today was not a good day for Captain America.

"Kind of what?" He prompted her kindly. 

"Kind of don't deserve it." Sam sat beside her on the bed and put a hand gently on her shoulder. He knew how alone she must be feeling, how sad, how afraid.

"Don't deserve tea?"

"The tea. Your kindness. Everyone's being so nice and..." He noticed her accent was thick today; it did that when she was upset.

"And you are feeling ashamed and guilty?" She nodded. "I think that's really normal to feel like that. I'm sorry you're going through this. I wish I had been there to help you, Wanda."

"It's nice of you, Sam, to try and help me shoulder the blame. But you did your job. I failed at mine and people died. I just... I thought I was helping people now. Really helping. I was..." Tears started to fall down her cheeks, silent, large tears. "I was so proud of myself when I caught that explosion and saved Steve. I thought... this is it. This is one of the moments that will help make up for... for the past. For my bad choices. I thought this is when people will like me and look up to me, and the mothers won't... they won't pull their kids towards them when I walk with you."

"They don't do that!" Same said, aghast. 

"They do. They should. You didn't see it, but I was there, it blew up... it blew up in my face." 

There was a lot he wanted to say. Things like this had happened in the military; friendly fire was surprising the first time it happened and after that it never was. Battle was chaotic and loud and you couldn't always tell who was shooting at you and who was your friend, that was simply the way it was. The bigger the enemy they fought, the more there were innocent people hurt or killed. Sam hated to think of when the helicarrier came down, the good SHIELD agents that were compromised along with the Hydra ones. He had a lot to say, but he didn't say any of it.

"Come here." He put his arm around her. He wanted to tell her it would be okay. It might be; Vision had mentioned that Tony Stark was pulling some strings, whatever that meant, and of course Steve was working things out from this end, so it really might be okay. It wouldn't fall on her shoulders in any case, not as a member of a team. He could probably tell her it would be okay and not even be lying about it.

But he knew that whatever the eventual outcome, saying it would be okay now wasn't going to be helpful so he just held her, once squeezing her tight as if that could put all her broken pieces back together. He just let her feel the warmth and strength his arms could offer and hopefully she could drink her tea with a little bit more peace than when he first came.

...

Sam looked to Steve.

He had lost his faith in a lot of things in life; Steve had helped him regain some of that faith-- that there were still good people out there, that there were things worth fighting for, that there were people who would try and make the world a better place. He looked to Steve.

There was maybe a more simple answer to it, honestly. It came down to a small thing, all considered. Steve had trusted him. When everyone he knew was trying to kill him, and the weight of the world and SHIELD and Hydra and everything was on his shoulders, he'd trusted Sam, and that meant something to him, that really _meant_ something, and he thought from then on it would be important for him to be on Steve Roger's side, because he trusted him to be right. Trusted him to be _good._ So far in their relationship, he'd gotten a lot of satisfaction in doing good, in seeing bad guys stopped and good guys win and it was easy and it was clear-cut because Hydra never pretended to be anything other than what they were, there was never any question that they had to be stopped.

But if there had.

Been a question.

He would look to Steve.

...

His heart sank and his adrenaline surged as he watched the news of the Vienna bombing. Of course, the King of Wakanda was speaking, their most vocal critic, when the bomb hit. In the first flurry of speculation and unconfirmed reports, there was even speculation that it was an ally of the Avengers that had detonated the bomb in order to keep the Accords from becoming law. But it was law. Sam swallowed. He knew what Steve would want to do. He walked over to the elevators to find Steve and Sharon. "Steve," he said, heart pounding. "There's something you gotta see."

They were on their way within 30 minutes.

...

"She tell you to stay out of it? Might have a point," Sam said as Steve got off the phone with Natasha. But he knew that stubborn look; knew that Steve felt that everything was _his_ fight and even if it hadn't been the Winter Soldier ID'd as a suspect, he would have felt like it was his responsibility to find the culprit and bring them in. If for no other reason than the principle of the thing. Steve Rogers was completely unfamiliar with the idea of _picking his battles._ They were all his. Sam _couldn't_ let him face it alone.

"He'd do it for me," Steve said, his mind wandering the past even more than usual after Peggy's funeral. All the ghosts of the past, hovering around him like tangible mists. Bucky hadn't left him behind, he wasn't about to let some strangers hunt and kill the man, no matter what HYDRA had made him into. Or even because of it. He didn't deserve it.

Sam wasn't in the past though. He was firmly rooted in the present, where people were lying in smoke and dust and ruin because of the Winter Soldier. "1945, maybe. I just want to make sure we considered all our options. The people that shoot at you usually wind up shooting at me."

Steve didn't answer. There was no answer. He never felt like he had a choice, no matter what anyone else told him. Sam remembered a time, Steve told him about it, when he'd asked how much he trusted Natasha. Steve had affirmed to him that he'd trust Natasha with his life. He wondered what it meant that he didn't seem to trust her about this, that when both Sam and Natasha recommended pulling back, Steve did what he himself thought was best.

...

Sam does everything he can to help bring the Winter Soldier in without anyone, including James Barnes, killed in the process. A newcomer in black, feline-like in appearance, agility, and _powerful_ tries to take out Barnes before Steve and Sam can take him in alive. 

Sam is walking a line more fine and complicated than he ever could have imagined-- defying 117 countries including his own, fighting German special forces, and now a new player that he had no idea their motives or history and he had to fight to stop them regardless. A part of him feels sick, feels the dropping sensation in his stomach like he's on a ride that spinning and escalating when he expects it least, but Steve needs him, his back up and support and he's going to be there for him.

No matter what.

Even if he's beginning to wonder if he'd make the same choices if it was anyone but Steve.

He already knew the answer, but he shoved it out of his mind without thinking about it.

He'd been training with James Rhodes for months and looked to the man as a friend and mentor. When the Iron Patriot de-escalates the out of control situation on the German highway, he feels Rhodey's tone of disappointment as a slap. "Congratulations, _Cap._ You're a criminal." And Rhodey doesn't put his mask down, but Sam can feel his eyes on him. 

...

Sharon Carter was a spy, an ex-SHIELD agent, and was part of the CIA. Sam wasn't surprised at all when she clicked into Tony and Steve's supposedly private conversation. 

"What do you call it? That's an olive branch. Is that what you call it?" Tony said, and despite his earlier irritation with them, Sam reads his body language as nervous now, or anxious. Steve doesn't respond to the olive branch except to smile and looks around.

"Is Pepper here? I didn't see her." The comment seems apropos of nothing, but maybe it seemed more like a Pepper move than a Tony Stark one.

Tony sits down, rubbing his face. "We're kinda… Well, not kinda…"

"Pregnant?" The hopefully delight in his face makes Sam smile. Steve liked kids but was uncomfortable around them; Tony, on the other hand, seemed to love kids and always sought out interactions with them. Half of his philanthropies were helping kids. 

"No. Definitely not. We're taking a break, it's nobody's fault," he said as if expecting fault to be placed.

Sam glanced at Sharon, who responded with her own guilty glance. It was likely that Tony assumed he was being recorded or watched, but they both knew they were treading on a private conversation. Sam's heart ached for Tony. Pepper was a constant in a world of frequent and unended change. He could only guess what a "break" would cost Tony, and he wondered whose idea it was. He had considered Pepper completely devoted and couldn't picture her leaving Tony, but why would Tony ever leave her?

"I'm so sorry, Tony. I didn't know." It's true that none of their recent activity included checking in with their friend and benefactor, Sam realized with a guilty squirm.

"A few years ago, I almost lost her, so I trashed all my suits. Then, we had to mop up HYDRA… and then Ultron. My fault. And then, and then, and then, I never stopped. Because the truth is I don't wanna stop. I don't wanna lose her. I thought maybe the Accords could split the difference." Sam shook his head. Both Steve and Tony had so much riding on the events unfolding. He could help but feel like they were a train picking up speed headed toward the end of the rail line. His stomach crawled. He was beginning to realize that, while he never expected Steve to compromise, it was looking less and less likely that Tony would either.

Tony stood up and started pacing while Steve looked down. "In her defense, I'm a handful. Yet, Dad was a pain in the ass, but he and mom always made it work."

Having just poked a finger into Tony's sore and vulnerable spot, Steve inadvertently pressed on another one. "You know, I'm glad Howard got married. I only knew him when he was young and single," he said, trying to lighten the mood and bring them back to common ground.

"Oh, really? You two knew each other? He never mentioned that. Maybe only a thousand times. God, I hated you."

Sam saw Steve's head drop in disappointment and defeat; Tony didn't see his pain. "I don't mean to make things difficult," Steve said, stiff and defensive now.

"I know, because you're a very polite person." The sarcasm stung.

"If I see a situation pointed south… I can't ignore it. Sometimes I wish I could." Sam did too, when it came to that-- sometimes wish he could ignore situations heading south. Sharon snorted indelicately.

"No, you don't," Tony replied, apparently agreeing with her assessment.

Steve smiled thinly, without humor. "No, I don't. Sometimes…"

"Sometimes I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth," Tony interrupted. "But I don't wanna see you gone. We need you, Cap. So far, nothing's happened that can't be undone, if you sign. We can make the last 24 hours legit. Barnes gets transferred to an American psych-center… instead of a Wakandan prison." Tony pressed gently on Steve's vulnerability. Save Bucky.

Steve stood up and took a few paces, then turned to Tony. "I'm not saying it's impossible, but there would have to be safeguards."

"Sure. Once we put out the PR fire, those documents can be amended. I'd file a motion to have you and Wanda reinstated…"

"Wanda? What about Wanda?"

"She's fine. She's confined to the compound, currently. Vision's keeping her company." Sam winced; Steve wasn't going to like that, but objectively, Sam could see how smart Stark was about the situation. The Wakandan king, now dead, had been most concerned with the powered ex-HYDRA experiment out of all the members of the Avengers. As powerful as the new king was proving to be, Sam was surprised and thankful that Tony had the ability to keep her under their supervision.

"Oh God, Tony! Every time. Every time I think you see things the right way…" Steve didn't bother to hide his anger.

"What?" Tony exploded, his own anger growing. Steve seemed completely oblivious to the realities they were facing. "It's a 100 acres with a lap pool. It's got a screening room. There's worse ways to protect people."

"Protection? Is that how you see this? This is protection? It's internment, Tony."

Tony's face tightened hearing his efforts reduced to ashes after everything it cost him. He wasn't Wanda's biggest fan, and keeping her in the compound had cost him a lot of the goodwill he'd had in Eastern Europe. "She's not a US citizen--" he reminded Steve.

"Oh, come on, Tony," Steve scoffed.

"--And they don't grant visas to weapons of mass destruction!"

"She's a kid!" Steve said with blatant disgust on his face.

"GIVE ME A BREAK! I'm doing what has to be done… to stave off something worse." Sam leaned forward, seeing the anger and fear flinch through Tony's face.

Steve nodded faintly. "You keep telling yourself that." He put the pen down. "Hate to break up the set."

He watched Tony put his glasses on, having just been verbally slapped in the face. Sam wondered if the mockery of keeping a pen set together given the obvious impending implosion of the Avengers was on purpose or an accident.

...

The Winter Soldier punched him in the stomach then grabbed his face and _threw_ him across the room. _By his face._ Later he wondered should be comforted by the fact that he never stood any kind of chance against the murder bot, and it was clear that if he had felt inclined to kill him he would have. At the time though, he thought nothing of it at all because he was unconscious. Not altogether unpleasant, really, giving him slight relief from the pain of a metal fist to his gut and the bruises he sustained from being thrown. _(Like a rag doll._ He was a grown man!)

As he came to, he tried to clear his thoughts, looking around. No sign of Steve or the Winter Soldier, but he could see the psychologist, peering down an elevator shaft. Something was wrong. Something was off. "Hey." The man turned and saw him and immediately bolted. 

Wherever Steve was, Sam knew he had to find that psychologist. He chased him, dodging fleeing civilians as the man gained a lead on him. He found the man's jacket on the ground, and cursed; if the damn government hadn't taken his Exo-7 and Redwing, this never would have happened. Anger and frustration warred within him briefly but there was no time-- even Steve would need help fighting someone as ruthless and determined as the Winter Soldier, particularly when, as Sam knew he would, Steve would be pulling his punches.

He arrived just in time to see the helicopter fall. Terror electrified him into action and in all the chaos of the wreck, he spotted Steve swimming away with an unconscious Bucky Barnes. Sam hesitated, wondering the best way to extract him before spotting a beat up VW. Thankful he'd jokingly asked Steve to show him how to hotwire a car and Steve had actually followed through, he prayed he'd be fast enough to get to them before anyone else.

...

"We have to get him someplace safe," Steve said as Sam drove, exhaustion and pain on his face as he stared down at his unconscious friend in the back seat as if mesmerized. The fall down the elevator shaft hadn't been exactly a walk in the park; Steve was tough but not impervious to pain and injury and followed by the helicopter crash into the water, Steve had definitely taken a beating.

Sam gritted his teeth. He was beginning to question how far he would go for Steve. Not that he wouldn't continue to follow him and do what he asked-- he trusted Steve implicitly, without hesitation, but he was beginning to question what it might cost him. Physically. Emotionally.

Ethically.

"Safe for who, Steve? Just so we're clear."

"Him," Steve replied automatically, but then turned to Sam, shaking himself from his stupor. "You saw how he was set up in there. It was all some kind of a trap, we have no idea who we can trust, it could have been any one of the Accords guys. You heard that Black Panther guy, Sam. You heard him threaten him. All this... All this Sam! All of this is just more of the same BS we've always been fighting. SHIELD, HYDRA, the army. No one looking out for the innocent people, anymore Sam. Just looking out for the agencies and governments and organizations. Even the Avengers."

"Steve, what are you saying?"

"I'm _saying_ I'm not putting a document or a government entity above individual lives! That's what got us into this whole mess to start with. Bucky was set up."

"Steve, he just tried to kill like three Avengers."

"No. No, _he_ didn't, the Winter Soldier did and he didn't hurt anyone, almost like he was pulling his punches." The bruise forming on Steve's cheek said otherwise but Sam argued a more obvious point.

"He wasn't pulling anything when he fired a gun in Tony Stark's face," he felt compelled to point out. "And Tony was only keeping him from shooting a guard while the evacuated the place." Steve looked at him in confusion and Sam pulled up the security footage Sharon had sent him before going dark. Sam watched Steve's face as he watched the Winter Soldier fight; instead of relenting, Steve set his jaw stubbornly.

"I have to talk to Bucky. We have to get him somewhere."

"I have an idea," Sam said, pulling into an auto-repair shop, with cobwebs on the window and an ancient _closed_ sign hanging precariously from a string. 

...

Steve was exhausted; he hadn't slept, maybe for days, and while the serum was healing his body he needed sleep and nourishment. Nourishment was out of the question, but a dusty couch gave him a few minutes to sleep after they put Bucky's metal arm securely in the vise. Steve using all his strength couldn't pull it loose and with the awkward angle even the Winter Soldier would not be able to budge. Sam wished, not for the first time, he had his Falcon armor. He would not be any kind of a match for the Winter Soldier without it. He felt sick worrying about what might happen if he somehow escaped, so while Cap took a well deserved siesta, Sam stood watch over two sleeping men.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update *hugs my readers* comments bring me joy!


	4. Chapter 4

Sam waited and watched Bucky Barnes sleep in bored and weary silence, interspersed at random with a spike of adrenaline as sirens and choppers got close, only to slide back into the same dull quiet. 

He was thinking through the throbbing headache the concussion had given him. Military trained, he was able to compartmentalize the pain and tiredness but he was no super soldier. By the time Steve woke up a half hour later, he was hungry, exhausted, and in pain. He wanted answers.

_I see a situation pointed south, I can't ignore it. Sometimes I wish I could._

_No you don't,_ Tony had answered immediately, often on the receiving end of one of Steve's verbal jabs when a situation was headed "south."

An angry smile. _No I don't. Sometimes--_

_Sometimes I wish I could punch you in your perfect teeth. But I don't want to see you gone. We need you, Cap._

Sam replayed that piece of their conversation a few times in his head, curious about what Steve was going to say before he was interrupted.

_Sometimes--_

Steve sat up as a siren blurted just outside the door, a _whoop whoop_ of warning. Sam quickly stepped to the window and angled himself so he could see out the blinds without opening them; the policeman had already moved on, talking to pedestrians across the street, telling them the entire area was being evacuated. He relaxed when the car left, watching it until it was a few blocks away.

Steve scrubbed his face to chase away some of the bone-crushing exhaustion. Twenty minutes wasn't much rest, but Sam felt compelled to get some answers from his friend. He pulled up a bent up folding chair, sitting across from Steve but where he could keep his eye on Bucky Barnes at the same time.

"Hey Cap. What exactly is the plan here?"

"When he wakes up, I'll talk to him. Find out what that doctor wanted from him."

"Then what?"

"That will depend on what he tells me," Steve replied, turning his steely blue eyes to Sam, a subtle challenge, a subtle stubbornness that had born him through so many fights, so many battles. 

Sam clenched his teeth, frustrated. "Steve. I heard the conversation between you and Tony Stark." Steve looked up at him quickly, a tic of annoyance flinching through his face.

"And?"

Sam swallowed his apology; he was sorry for listening in on a private conversation, but he wasn't sorry for the information he'd gotten. It was his life he was putting on the line to help Steve, and so far Steve had not answered a single one of his concerns. "Tony said he'd get Bucky into a psych hospital. What if we call him?"

Steve was already shaking his head. "I don't want to drag Tony into this."

"Uh, Steve? I hate to break it to you but Tony Stark is neck deep in this already. He wanted to help us--" He remembered Tony's earnestness, his almost desperation when he was trying to get Steve to sign.

"Yeah, he was willing to help when it benefited his agenda! He was just trying to trick and manipulate me into signing those damned Accords! We have to do this without Tony, Sam. He's in a difficult position. But if we can figure out who is after Bucky and why, the Accords won't matter anymore. They'll see that we have to operate without them, they're too constraining, this will be direct proof of that."

Sam chose to ignore for the moment that Cap had seemed close to signing the Accords before Tony mentioned Wanda. But what happened to Wanda couldn't have been Accords sanctioned but rather Tony's doing so Sam wasn't sure why that had changed his mind on the Accords themselves. It wasn't important at the moment. "I'm not sure I follow you."

"Tony was following the Accords and they would have killed Bucky. Now with that psychiatrist triggering the Winter Soldier, it's clear that HYDRA must be involved. They were wrong! They were after the wrong guy the whole time. The Accords are the problem. Tony could have been with us to know all this, but he's so worried about kissing government butts that he's lost sight of what we started out to do."

"I don't know Steve," Sam replied, his head throbbing. He agreed that the Accords were not a good idea; it put too many hoops to jump through, and anytime there were regulations they invariably were put before the very people they were trying to help and protect. But having seen the absolute disaster of an uproar after Bucharest, he thought it would be very convenient if the Avengers could focus on the mission and let the Accords deal with the politics. It was probably just his headache, though. "The Winter Soldier really could have hurt someone. It's not really my business maybe, but it seems like Tony's always been there for you. Why not let him get Bucky the psychiatric help he needs. He's... he's killed people. Innocent people. And even though he was the Winter Soldier, _Bucky_ still has to deal with that!"

"The last thing he needs is locked up again and attacked by a bunch of shrinks! It would be too dangerous for him; I know he'll be all right. It wasn't him. He'd be a target! Just like he is now. He's safe with us. Bucky's fine, as long as we keep him out of their hands." 

_But are we safe with him?_ Sam didn't ask the question, he already knew the answer; his pounding headache was answer enough. He wasn't so sure he agreed that Bucky was going to be fine, either.d

"Tony wants what we want; save the good guys, stop the bad guys. As soon as we explain Bucky was framed he'll trust us on it," Sam said, trying to sound reasonable.

"I don't think... I don't want to involve Tony with Bucky," he said, dismissing the idea with a lift of his shoulder.

"Tony has a lot of resources. Why _didn't_ he ever help you find Bucky?" 

"He... he's busy. It's not... It wasn't really his problem."

"He said that?"

"Not exactly."

"Steve," Sam said with a warning. 

"Look Sam I never told him about looking for Bucky. It's a personal problem."

"Well now it's not personal anymore," Sam reminded him, unable to understand why Steve wouldn't ask Tony to put some resources on finding out about Bucky. "There's not many people on the face of the planet more capable than Tony Stark."

"You weren't there for Ultron, Sam," Steve said with a long, weary sigh. The shift in topic confused Sam, but before he could point out that they'd been looking for Bucky _before_ Ultron, Steve continued. "Tony doesn't know the difference between saving the world and destroying it."

Sam drew back in surprise. "Wait, what? That--" 

That seemed totally off from what he knew about Tony. All he'd done, even semi-retired, to help them and keep them safe; it didn't seem like the actions of a reckless person who would destroy the world.

"Seriously, what do you mean?" Sam demanded. Steve looked at him, his blue eyes full of sorrow.

"You know Tony why Tony stepped down from active duty after Ultron, right?" 

Sam shook his head slowly. Rhodey had never said anything specifically about why Tony had left the Avengers, but Sam had gotten the impression that it had something to do with Pepper Potts and wanting to focus on Stark Industries projects. Steve nodded affirmation. "It was because he and Bruce Banner were responsible for the creation of Ultron."

"Wait. Hold up. Rhodey said there was some kind of alien _thing_ in Loki's scepter and _that's_ where Ultron came from."

"Right, that was part of it, but if Tony and Bruce hadn't been messing around with it, Ultron would never have existed. Listen, Sam. Tony's a great guy, and Iron Man is pretty damn well irreplaceable. But Tony always acts from his fear, and that's gotten him into trouble. He's got trust issues. You've worked with soldiers, you know how it is! After Afghanistan, after Stane, after the Mandarin, after Loki. He and Bruce were way over their heads, and if he and Thor were here, they'd be accountable too. That's why Tony's so obsessed with the Accords, he doesn't want to be responsible! I can't live like that. I can't let a document or an agency be in charge of my actions. And I can't trust them to do what's right with Bucky."

"Steve, I hear you, man. But that's not what Tony sounded like to me. He said Iron Man was heavily invested in the success of the Avengers even if he wasn't flying with them."

"Yeah, that's just it... in the success of the Avengers, not the missions. He sounds like Natasha-- 'staying together is more important than how we stay together.' Well, not for me. Sometimes it feels like the Avengers are Tony's family Sam, more than mine. I've always been on my own, since I was 18."

"I see." Sam didn't know how to take that.

"Look, Sam. This isn't 'bag on Tony Stark' day, but you need to understand the facts. When Wanda Maximoff was... before she joined the Avengers, she made some mistakes. She used her powers on some of the Avengers; me, Natasha. But Tony was the only one who couldn't get over it. I think it still affects his judgment. You heard him, he had her locked up at the Compound."

"I thought it'd be a lot worse, to be honest, after that Wakandan king was so upset," Sam said cautiously. "Forty people die in an explosion, there's bound to be some kind of fall out from that, right?"

"My point is, ever since then with Bruce and Thor gone, Tony's... well, Tony is Tony. She messed with my head too, it wasn't all that bad, I got over it. But Tony doesn't trust anymore. You see what I'm saying? He doesn't trust me, so I _can't_ trust him. He hides things, he argues with me, he ignores my concerns. I can't tell you how selfish he can be, Sam. Even Banner left him."

"I don't get why he doesn't trust you, Cap. You've always been on the up and up with him."

Steve looked a bit uncomfortable, hangdog. Sam felt a stab of sympathy, remembering all Steve had lost recently. He looked so sad and broken, and he was trying to help an old friend. "I don't know why. He doesn't tell me things."

Sam shook his head. He felt his anger flare at Tony Stark; for all he pretended to care and help, the picture Steve was painting of the arrogant genius put him in a new light. But all of this relationship drama between the Avengers was only making his headache worse. "All right, Cap, we'll play it your way. We won't call Tony.

Steve looked uneasy, as if he had maybe pushed it a bit too far. "I'm not saying Tony's not great--"

"I understand, Cap. So what's the plan?" He was tired of rehashing it. The sooner they figured out what HYDRA was up to and stopped them, the sooner they could rest.

The loud sound of more sirens interrupted them and Steve stepped to the window and peeked out the blinds as the sound got louder then faded away. Sam, his eyes on the Winter Soldier, noticed the man stir. 

"Hey Cap!" Sam said sharply to recall Steve, his tension skyrocketing as one of the most dangerous and lethal people on the face of the earth started to come around.

Bucky looked up, disoriented, his eyes alighting on his old friend. "Steve?"

Steve was watching him tensely. "Which Bucky am I talking to?"

"Your mom's name was Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes."

Sam noticed Steve visibly relax and even smile. "Can't read that in a museum."

Sam on the other hand still felt tense, ready to fight or flee. "Just like that, we're supposed to be cool?" He said angrily to Steve, disturbed at his lack of concern.

"What did I do?" Bucky asked, fear and tension making his voice harsh.

"Enough," Steve said sternly.

"Oh, god, I knew this would happen. Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there, all he had to do was the damn words!"

Steve stepped forward. "Who was he?"

"I don't know."

"People are dead. The bombing, the setup. The doctor did all that just to get ten minutes with you. I need you to do better than _I don't know._ "

"He wanted to know about Siberia. Where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where." His breathing was rapid and ragged, his muscles tight and tense.

Steve frowned, glancing at Sam. It was not what he expected; he had thought that the doctor was after Barnes himself, to use him, not looking for information. "Why would he need to know that?"

"Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier." He told them about the death squad, HYDRA's most lethal killers in their history. 

"They all turn out like you?" Sam couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. 

"Worse."

Steve ignored Sam. "The doctor, could he control them?"

"Enough." Not good news; a partially controlled Winter Soldier would be even more dangerous, volatile, and difficult to predict than one under HYDRA's orders.

"He said he wanted to see empire's fall," Steve said with dawning understanding, the context provided for the cryptic phrase the doctor had used.

"With these guys he could do it," Bucky said tensely. "They speak thirty languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize. They can take a whole country down in one night. You'd never see them coming." 

Sam noted the real fear in Bucky's voice, and relaxed his vigilance slightly. This changed everything. Bucky wasn't the target after all, he had only wanted information. On the other hand, they had a much larger problem, one that Steve and Sam alone would not be able to fix. "This would have been a lot easier a week ago."

Steve seemed to contemplate. "If we call Tony..."

"No, he wouldn't believe us." Sam wasn't sure he even believed it; _five_ more Winter Soldiers? His mind swam. With the tension between Cap and Tony Stark and Stark's inexplicable distrust of Steve, it was a recipe for an even bigger disaster.

"Even if he did," Steve said, regret in his voice, as if reconsidering his need for Tony's help. Sam laughed to himself a little; for some reason, it seemed like Steve maybe trusted Tony more than he let on, as long as it didn't involve Bucky Barnes (or Wanda). Now that the target was somewhat off Bucky's back, Steve seemed much less defensive. _Well,_ Sam reflected. _The Winter Soldier did try to kill Tony, that's probably what he's worried about._

"Who knows if the Accords would let him help."

"We're on our own."

"Maybe not," Sam said, allowing himself a little smile. They'd have to find a payphone. "I know a guy."

Cautiously Sam went over to the vice and released its terrible grip. Steve pulled Bucky to his feet and the two men once close as brothers now virtual strangers contemplated each other, their faces filled with pain, and Sam looked away.

...

How it was supposed to go: they call Sharon Carter. She brings their gear, contacts Clint. Clint gets Wanda and Scott Lang. 

"Is it really a good idea to involve Clint? What about his family?"

"If anything we're doing him a favor. I'm sure as soon as we capture five Winter Soldiers, the Accords people will have no choice but to let us continue our work. He was forced into retirement, this way he can still help us save the world."

"What about Bucky? Wouldn't it be dangerous to take him anywhere near that doctor?" Presumably, there was nothing Bucky could do to keep the trigger words from activating his brainwashing. 

"We won't let anything happen," Steve said grimly. "This will help him, too. He will see he can fight against the people who did this, and the world will see what a good man he is. Trust me Sam."

"What about Vision?" Sam asked, thinking through the plan.

"He won't go against the Accords. You've seen them in training, Wanda can easily deal with him."

"Deal with him?" Sam asked, a sinking feeling. Pitting the two of them against each other seemed wrong.

"Only if they have to, of course, Clint has some arrows that should incapacitate him just so they can escape. I'm sure she's going crazy locked up in there." Undoubtedly Stark tech. It felt wrong to use Tony's weapons against Vision, but-- 

Greater good. There was a greater good. Helping Captain America take down five HYDRA assassins was _good._ Cap knew Tony Stark better than he did, and if he said keeping Stark out of it and getting Wanda was the right call, he was his friend and leader and he wasn't going to keep questioning his judgement when so much was at stake. They had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam saying "he wouldn't believe us" in civil war always bugged me. this is my interpretation of what steve might have said to make sam think tony wouldn't believe them, but sam had a misunderstanding of steve's reluctance; the real reason obviously that steve didn't want tony involved with anything to do with bucky was because he knew what bucky had done to tony's parents, even if he refused to acknowledge it even to himself ("I didn't know it was him"). steve knew sam had the wrong idea but didn't bother to correct him; he had other pressing things to worry about. I think it was easier for steve to blame tony's principles, past mistakes, signing the accords, any excuse besides facing the truth that it wasn't tony at all but himself that was the problem. i also think steve was more willing to face five super soldiers (six including bucky) rather than face the truth. five times cap was brave and the one time he was an utter coward.
> 
> Please comment i'm interested in your thoughts on it


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